Justified Means (Book One) (The Agency Files) (27 page)

The myriad of questions that flooded her mind nearly drowned out his next words. “When we get to where I can pull off the road, I’ll remove the tape, but it’s going to hurt.”

There—it was back. That was the tone she was accustomed to hearing. There was a comfort in hearing the warning and the authority in him again. Maybe he was just tired and she’d misread him. Maybe she was wrong.

“So, you probably want to know why I’m here? I’ll take that thump as a yes.” His chattiness felt awkward—forced. The uncertainty she’d stuffed down returned. This was bad—possibly worse—than the last time, and the last time had nearly gotten her killed. “Someone infiltrated my last assignment. It took us a while, but we finally got him to tell us what he was after—sort of. You were next. That’s all I know.”

It might be all he knew, but Erika knew there must be more to the story. She heard something in his voice, and she didn’t like it. That voice spoke volumes with each word, but it seemed to use an unfamiliar language. She’d have to wait until he took off the tape. She frowned, the tape stretching and pulling from the sides of her cheek painfully. Why would he take off the tape before they got somewhere? That would be an absolute violation of every protocol they ever used, and she knew it.

Wherever they were going, it wasn’t back to the cabins. Of course, it’d be a little silly to take the same person back to a place they
had been forced to leave. Obviously, the wrong people knew about it—or at least potentially did. She waited for him to tell her where they might go, but he didn’t. Erika desperately wanted to be able to ask, but when he pulled the van over and crawled between the seats to remove the duct tape, she turned her head away from him.

“What?”

Erika whipped her head back and glared. He reached for the tape, but she jerked away again, shaking her head. “I don’t get it. Don’t you want that off?” She shook again. “Now you get all funny about the pain of the tape.” She could only hope her face showed the absolute disgust she felt at those words. “Then what?”

With one last jerk of her head toward the driver’s seat, Erika rolled away from him, hoping she’d made the right decision. The Keith Auger who had been her “protector” the first time would see her actions as proof of trust. With this Keith, who knew?

The drive seemed endless. She regretted her rash decision to stay a gagged prisoner.  How stupid was that? Twice they stopped for gas, but after the second time, Keith’s entire demeanor changed. He climbed back in the van, started it up, and pulled out onto the highway as if on auto pilot. “Ok, we’re not far.” He took a sip of water before he continued. “Look, Erika, this one’s going to be worse for you—I think. I doubt you can leave; it’s just an RV so it’s tiny, and we’ll be taking Navy showers so that it doesn’t look like I’m using more water than a single guy normally would. I have to make it look like you’re not even there when anyone from the park is around. I’m sorry, but it’s the best place I can come up with.”

Apologetic—not courtesy driven, but truly sorry for his decision—a new side of him. Erika didn’t think she liked it. Confident, while irritating, comforted in a strange sort of way.

They arrived within minutes of the gas station. That was good. If Keith had completely freaked out, she could always try to escape and walk to the station. The van turned left onto an asphalt parking lot. He had chosen to bring her some place that public? It seemed odd—almost dangerous.

The van pulled off the pavement onto a dirt road of some kind and then stopped several hundred yards away. Keith hurried from the vehicle, and Erika waited for the door to open, but it didn’t. There were faint scratching sounds outside, but she couldn’t quite make sense of them. After what seemed like an hour, but common sense assured her was only ten or fifteen minutes, the door opened and Keith beckoned her to scoot closer. “I’ll take the ropes off here,” he whispered.

The moment he freed her hands, while he untied her feet, Erika whipped off the duct tape and hissed, “Are you insane? Get me in there!”

He retrieved her bag and his from the front seat and followed her into the RV. As she fumbled for a light, he grabbed her hand. “No lights,” he whispered. “There can’t be two silhouettes.”

At first, that precaution seemed wise and simple enough. After all, it felt like he was back to his normal self—making sure her captivity felt like it. However, when her hipbone hit the edge of a table, that opinion changed. “I’m going to be black and blue!”

“Shh.”

Keith dumped the bags and guided her to the “bedroom” of the RV. His breath tickled her ear as he whispered, “Straight ahead is a bed. To the left is the door to the bathroom. Just don’t turn on the light.”

With that, he was gone, the soft latch of a doorknob clicking behind him. She tried to glance around her in the darkness, but Erika saw nothing. Walking with her hands out in front of her, she stumbled into the bed, crawled up to the pillows, and pulled down the covers.

Well, that was weird.

The new house was nice—almost too nice. In Claire’s mind, it was downright palatial. The entryway alone was larger than her entire apartment. The stables housed horses that, to her surprise, they were encouraged “to ride whenever Brian can be spared from the house.” The children took to it as if accustomed to white couches in “mommy’s” living room and a kitchen large enough to service an entire restaurant.

Brian remained terse toward Melissa and Claire, but without Keith to interact with the children, he did manage to carry on necessary conversations with the little ones comfortably—in almost a freakish Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde scenario. Each time
Claire tried to engage his gentler side in conversation, he managed to switch to the “dark side” faster than seemed possible. His explanations of how to get to the next level of a video game were simple but thorough. However, when, just as he paused to let Jordan try it, she asked when they’d hear from Keith next, his reply was, “Don’t know.”

Melissa spent her time taking care of Katie and the baby and fretting over where her husband might be. Despite all of Claire’s reassurances, the woman dissolved into a puddle of anxiety and worry. Jordan was left to his own devices—something that Claire suspected the boy expected. Thankfully, he had that first-born tendency to be responsible beyond his years.

Jordan heard the helicopter first, and raced outside to watch it land, sending Claire right behind him to ensure he didn’t get too close. At the sight of Karen and John, her heart leapt. Did this mean it was over? Was Keith next? She hardly noticed as John grabbed his son in a hug certain to squeeze the life from the child.

Karen’s head shook as she jogged across the grass to her side. “He had to go back to Erika. It’s been a nightmare,” she shouted over the deafening whirl of the helicopter blades.

Inside, Claire opened her mouth, ready to demand more information, but saw that John was obviously not there to stay. He hugged his wife, kissed his children, listened to the exciting things they’d done, laughed at his son’s indignation over vehicular bathrooming, and then rose to go. “They let me come in for a minute since we were dropping off Karen, but we really need to get this to the Feds. They’ll start driving you home the minute the FBI gives the ok.”

Melissa demanded to be allowed to go too, but John shook her off, giving one last pain-filled kiss before he hurried out the door and into the waiting helicopter. The sounds of the aircraft slowly disappeared as it flew back toward Rockland. Claire nearly screamed as Karen picked up the baby and led Melissa back to one of the bedrooms, explaining the process of turning evidence over to the FBI and what steps they had to take to ensure that they were still safe, even after the criminals were arrested.

Jordan asked about dinner, and since Brian’s idea of meals meant popping something with the taste and consistency of cardboard into the microwave and serving it with a can of soda instead of milk, juice, or even water, the task had fallen to her to try to provide something edible and semi-nutritious. If it happened to taste better than Styrofoam, she considered herself a success.

Karen came into the kitchen just as Claire fought the stove, trying not to burn the cubed steaks she’d found in the freezer. “Turn down the burner. You want to let them cook slowly or they’ll be charred on the outside and raw inside.”

“Even something this thin?”

“They were frozen, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Take it slow. People try to cook everything instantly. The stove isn’t a microwave. If you let things simmer a bit, they have a lot more flavor, and they actually get cooked.”

Claire stared at the woman as if she’d come from another planet. “My mom has been trying to tell me this stuff for years. Why can’t she say things that plainly?”

From the depths of an enormous French-doored freezer, Karen pulled a bag of stir-fry vegetables. “If we steam these and toss them with some Italian dressing, the kids’ll probably eat them.”

“Vegetables? I thought kids hated vegetables. I was going for protein and maybe some juice or something.”

Karen shook her head. “I’ve watched Melissa. She makes her kids eat veggies. All we have to do is make them palatable, and vinegar does wonders for that.”

“Kids like vinegar.”

“With veggies, sure. That
, and ranch dressing.”  Karen reached into the fridge for the necessary dressing.  “I’d chop up a bunch of raw stuff, but I don’t know if we’re staying here or moving.”

“What for?”

“Well,” Karen glanced around and then lowered her voice. “It’s a long story. I’m supposed to be taking you to Stanford, but we’re not actually going.”

“What about Brian?”

“He’ll escort the Frielichs home or to protective custody—whichever the FBI decides—and we’re supposedly going to Stanford, but we’ll meet with Keith.”

“What will Mark say about that?”

Karen glanced around the room, stepped through the doorway, and when sure no one could overhear, whispered, “We’re not telling Mark in case he’s our mole.”

After the fifth time she snapped at him, Erika decided an apology might be in order, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. One minute he was the slightly terse, no-nonsense, wants-her-to-fight guy that she’d first met, and the next minute he became apologetic, nervous, and at times, visibly alarmed when any unfamiliar sound dared to surface. It unnerved her—stressed her—even more so than Corey had.

The fifth wheel was nice, though. She’d never understood the idea of a camper that was half the cost of the average house in some of the smaller towns around Rockland, but she had to admit, it felt almost luxurious. Cherry cabinetry, granite counters, even the sleek black appliances looked as though they were right out of a home design show rather than in a camper stuck in an RV park. The bed she’d slept on was the nicest bed she’d ever used, and even the chairs were quality. It had a flat-screen TV, larger than anyone she knew owned, and it hung over a fireplace. The idea of a fireplace in an RV just seemed weird. Cool, but weird—like everything else that had happened in her life lately.

Keith’s phone buzzed, and he answered it with an expression she’d have considered guilt-riddled if she didn’t know better. Listening to one side of the conversation nearly drove her over the edge of her already precarious precipice. “We’re here. We’re safe, but—”

Most of what he said made little sense to her, but occasionally things clicked together. He wasn’t checking in with Mark. That unnerved her. She tried to concentrate on the TV, but it was nearly impossible. At last, feeling a little desperate, Erika decided to make a bathroom run in hopes of hearing something from Karen. As she passed, all she heard was, “John’s family.” That wasn’t very helpful.

By the time she returned, Keith stared at his cellphone looking more agitated than ever. “Ok, what’s up? I’m not going to pretend I didn’t hear half of that, and I did hear Karen say something about John’s family. So, who is John, and why doesn’t Mark know where we are?”

Keith fidgeted, clearly torn—why, she couldn’t be sure. Did he not know, or did he not know if he should share? If she wasn’t careful, she’d encourage him in the wrong area and it would definitely backfire. However, before she could decide which angle to try, he sighed, sinking into one of the chairs, and hung his head in his hands. “There’s a mole, Erika. We aren’t sure who it is, but there’s a mole. There has to be.”